Chapter 49: The Missing Puzzle Piece

“So, what now?” Willow asked as Garin drove towards her house. She realized that this was the first time that he had ever been there, and she was feeling incredibly self-conscious. She groaned inwardly thinking about the posters that littered her walls. It looked like the room of a teenager not a woman in her mid-twenties.
“Well, since my father and Silas are dead and my mother is missing, the estate falls to Audrey. She is going to handle everything. I think she has already listed the house on the market.” He replied with a laugh. He had told her about killing his father. He said that he had no regrets in doing so but he had a haunted look about him. She reached over and squeezed his knee lightly.
“Where will Audrey go now?” Willow asked, already feeling sad that she wouldn’t get to know Audrey better. There was something about her that drew a person in and made them feel welcome.
“She hasn’t said. She owns a small clothing store, but I think she will probably sell that as well. She is a big city person. She has never really enjoyed the outdoors. She will most likely head back to New York,” he replied, his eyes tired.
He pulled into her drive and parked the car. The engine turned off and silence descended. Willow was beginning to feel a bit lightheaded. She couldn’t need to eat, again could she? He got out of the car and was looking over the house. She followed him.
“Well, do you want to come in?” she asked and forged ahead, unlocking the door. The house was empty. Loriann had opted to stay at the lodge for a few days to help with the various tasks that came after a battle. Garin nodded and followed her into the house.
It smelled of her, spicy and comforting. His parents’ homes had always been cold and unwelcoming. Her house invited long conversations over coffee and sit-down meals. He wanted to lay down and sleep for days. He felt weirdly enough, at home.
She led him into the kitchen and began digging through the fridge. She appeared with a large chicken pot pie. “Yes!” she exclaimed and slid it into the oven, barely able to wait to heat it up. He laughed and slid onto the barstool she usually occupied.
“It’s nice having you here,” she said reaching across the counter to grasp his hand.
“It feels nice to be here. It’s so…homey.” He replied with a smile. She smiled back.
“Do you want some tea?” she asked.
“Tea? I’ve never known you to drink tea,” he said. “Are you feeling alright?”
She waved off his concern. “I’m fine. My stomach has just been a little upset.”
“Almost dying will do that to you,” he quipped, and she swatted him with a hand towel.
“I’m going to go shower. Can you pull that out when it beeps? The living room is through there if you want to watch tv,” she kissed his temple and went upstairs. He awkwardly looked around feeling nearly scandalous being left alone in a home that wasn’t his. He wandered down the hall and looked into the living room.
It was a cozy room with a large, overstuffed sofa and two recliners. A giant tv stretched above the fireplace. Through there was an office, with books crammed on many shelves. As he walked back towards the kitchen, he caught glimpses of Willow as a child hanging in photographs that lined the walls. He smiled at the photo of her grinning widely, missing her two top front teeth.
He didn’t want to miss the oven timer so after a few minutes of fumbling with the ancient kettle, he made a pot of tea and settled himself at the table. His phone rang loudly, startling him. “Dammit,” he said and wiped the scalding drops of tea from his hand.
“Hey Audrey, what's up?” his face fell as his sister chittered on the other end.
“That isn’t possible…is that why…. wow. Okay, thanks for telling me. Yeah, I’ll be up later. Okay, bye.” He hung up the phone, his stomach full of dread.
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Audrey hung up the phone and stared at the journal before her. It was similar to the history of the Red Hoods tome that they were all forced to read except that this was a personal account. She had flipped through it after finding it stuffed in the safe in her father’s office.
When she saw Willow’s last name, curiosity had gotten the best of her and she had immediately flipped to the page. What she saw there horrified her.
Willow’s father was Adrian Byrne, her father’s best friend. She had found a box of pictures underneath the book. The photos were all of Adrian and Weyland throughout the years, from young children until a few years before Adrian’s death.
Adrian had been like an uncle to the Brochade children. He just stopped coming one day and their parents only gave them vague and evasive answers. Now she knew. Her father had written everything down, in his scrawled handwriting.
Once they had learned that Adrian had left to be with a shifter, Audrey’s parents had been consumed by betrayal. They spent years hunting him. The final straw had been Willow.
“He has procreated with that…that beast. This can not stand. This is a betrayal to the Red Hoods, our families…to ME! He will pay for spawning another disgusting creature.” The pen had torn through the page. It went into further detail of how his parents had initially tried to abduct Willow, but her parents had hidden her away with Loriann. The following pages spoke of how they tortured and killed Willow’s parents.
With tears running down her face, Audrey had come to the horrifying realization that the wolf’s head hanging above their fireplace was indeed, Nora, Willow’s mother.